Businesses today use a wide variety of devices and mechanisms to display their products to consumers and the passing public. For example, products are displayed with hangers, hooks, clips, clamps and the like or presented in bins, pockets, baskets or racks. For versatility and ease of presentation, adjustable hanging, hooking and clipping items are often utilized.
One of the known ways to display and retain products in this manner involves the use of hook members with pegboards. Pegboards comprise planar sheets of material with a plurality of holes or openings spaced uniformly in a grid pattern. The hook members have one, two or more pins or fingers which fit within the holes in order to hold the hook members in place. The merchandise or products are then positioned on the hook member, typically by use of an opening in the product packaging.
The hooks, hangers, clips and the like are made from a wide variety of materials, preferably a hard plastic or metal. For example, metal rods are often used for making the hangers or hook members for pegboards, the member having one or two fingers or pins that are bent at right angles for insertion in holes in the pegboard. The pins are typically welded to the wire rod. The hook members also have one or more elongated members used for mounting the products for presentation.
One of the difficulties with hooks and hangers on pegboards, is that it is difficult to move the hooks or hangers without disrupting or interfering with adjacent products and hangers. The hooks or hangers need to be rotated up to 90.degree. in many instances in order to remove them from the pegboard and this often interferes with products suspended or hanging from adjacent hooks.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an improved merchandise hanger or hook mechanism for use in holding and displaying products. It is another object of the present invention to provide a hook or hanger mechanism for pegboards which overcomes the problems with existing hooks and hangers.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide an improved hanger mechanism for a pegboard in which the hanger mechanism can be removed without interfering with adjacent hangers and products suspended therefrom. It is a still further object of the present invention to provide a hanger for merchandising racks in which the products are not disturbed significantly when the hanger or hook on which they are positioned is removed or moved to a different location.
These and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following description, drawings and claims.